FINANCIAL 2
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12/17 age of trump</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see FIRE sector</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see financialization horseman
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">medium 221</font></div><div><div class="yiv4456552525email-bold yiv4456552525email-digestPostTitle" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.22; font-weight: 700;"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="blank" href="https://medium.com/@drew.costley/water-is-being-traded-on-the-stock-market-for-the-first-time-55c02bb616ed?source=email-614f991bbfe0-1614331031458-digest.reader------0-49------------------0ea6f525_dbe2_44cd_8cd7_d844464bc388-11-----§ionName=topic" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 50); text-decoration-line: none;">Water Is Being Traded on the Stock Market for the First Time</a></div><div class="yiv4456552525email-digestPostSubtitle" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.33; font-size: 15px; margin-top: 4px;">Some say trading water as a commodity could help mitigate future water crises, but others are highly…</div><div class="yiv4456552525email-marginTop8 yiv4456552525email-xs-marginTop10 yiv4456552525email-fontSize15 yiv4456552525email-textDarkerGray" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 15px; color: rgb(117, 117, 117); margin-top: 8px;"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="yiv4456552525email-link yiv4456552525email-textDarkerGray" target="blank" href="https://medium.com/@drew.costley?source=email-614f991bbfe0-1614331031458-digest.reader-------------------------0ea6f525_dbe2_44cd_8cd7_d844464bc388" style="color: rgb(117, 117, 117); text-decoration-line: none;">Drew Costley</a> in <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="yiv4456552525email-link yiv4456552525email-textDarkerGray" target="blank" href="https://medium.com/future-human?source=email-614f991bbfe0-1614331031458-digest.reader-------------------------0ea6f525_dbe2_44cd_8cd7_d844464bc388" style="color: rgb(117, 117, 117); text-decoration-line: none;">Future Human</a></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/a-cruel-experiment-how-46-million-people-were-trapped-by-student-debt">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/a-cruel-experiment-how-46-million-people-were-trapped-by-student-debt</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The democratic principle of tuition-free education in our country pre-dates the founding of the United States. The first public primary education was offered in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, and its legislature created Harvard College the following year to make education available to all qualified students</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Even before the Constitution was ratified, the Confederation Congress enacted the </span><a href="https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Land_Ordinance_of_1785" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Land Ordinance of 1785</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, which required newly established townships in territories ceded by the British to devote a section of land for a public school. It also passed the </span><a href="https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Northwest_Ordinance" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Northwest Ordinances</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, which set out the guidelines for how the territories could become states. Among those guidelines was a requirement to establish public universities and a stipulation that “the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” After the nation declared independence, <b>Thomas Jefferson argued for a formal education system funded through government taxation</b>.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Jefferson’s vision took form over the course of more than a century, as state and local governments began creating primary schools and then high schools. The federal government became involved in higher education in the 19th century with the creation of land grant colleges and other institutions, used primarily to teach agriculture and education after the Civil War. These institutions created opportunities for people who had long been locked out of the learning process, including formerly enslaved African Americans and impoverished people of all races.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">State universities and colleges rapidly expanded as well. By the middle of the 20th century, low-cost or tuition-free education was available in many American states. After the Second World War, the federal government once again turned to education to promote opportunities for its citizens and economic growth for all. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The G.I. Bill paid educational expenses for 8 million people, without regard to individual wealth,</b> which helped create a robust middle class and contributed to the vibrant growth economy of the 1950s and 1960s. While those opportunities were still denied to many people as the result of racism, efforts were underway to improve educational access for people of color.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The Reagan era ushered in a belief that government programs, including education, stood in the way of people’s dreams and should be severely cut back.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Public goods came to be seen as investments, ones that were purely economic in nature. For these reasons, among others, a nation that had expanded publicly funded education for centuries decided to reverse course. Instead of funding higher education on the principle that it benefits us all, the country began shifting the cost to individual students. i</span></font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">n the 1950s, as part of the National Defense Education Act, </span><a href="https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/t/th/the-national-defense-education-act-of-1958-selected-outcomes/d-3306.ashx" target="blank" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">student loans were created</a><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> as an experiment in social engineering. Concerned about competition with the Soviet Union, policymakers wanted to increase students’ capabilities in math and sciences. To do that, the country needed more teachers. So, lawmakers offered loans to college students, with the opportunity to have half the loan canceled after 10 years if they became teachers.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The experiment failed. Researchers have <a href="https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/t/th/the-national-defense-education-act-of-1958-selected-outcomes/d-3306.ashx" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">not been able to prove</a> that the student loan program led more people to become teachers, despite multiple attempts to do so. The experiment was also cruel. Over the years, the student loan program was expanded, with the claim that a student’s personal investment in their education was an “investment” that would pay off in higher wages. <b>Banks and other private lenders were brought into the process and given considerable incentives and subsidies to issue student loans, without considering the burden being imposed on the student. This financial opportunity was given to banking interests that were already wealthy, with little thought of the resulting damage to an economically sustainable future.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Proponents of <b>financializing</b> the cost of higher education argued that it was cheaper to lend money to students than it was for federal and state governments to provide grants for their education, even after paying subsidies to the <b>private</b> sector for their loans. An entire industry grew up around this process. State and nonprofit guaranty agencies were created to insure the loans. These agencies got paid, no matter what: when loans were issued, when loans became delinquent, when borrowers defaulted, and when they collected on defaulted loans.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In response, most states created guaranty agencies so they could make money from people who needed to borrow to pay for ever-increasing tuitions and fees.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Now, states had an extra incentive to cut funding for public higher education. Not only would they save on expenditures, but they could increase the need for students to borrow, which increased their revenue. In many cases, these guaranty agencies don’t handle the loans themselves.<b> They pass the work on to private debt collectors</b> who take collection fees and are aggressive in their handling of cases.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The system took on a life of its own</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">. </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">By the mid-1990s, student loans had surpassed grants in funding students’ higher education. But a system built on debt financing only works if borrowers pay back their loans. That led Congress to make the system even crueler with the Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Judgeship Act of 1984, which exempted student loans from bankruptcy proceedings and <b>subjected borrowers to draconian collection tools</b></span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. These tools included wage garnishment without a court order and the seizure of Social Security checks and tax refunds.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Clinton and Obama administrations attempted to lessen the burden slightly by allowing the federal government to lend directly to students while introducing income-based repayment options, but the system’s fundamental cruelty remains unchanged today.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is time to recognize that the cruel experiment in financing higher education through student loans has failed. It has captured 46 million people and their families in a student loan trap, including people who received vocational training, and has weakened the financial strength of higher education. Inescapable debt is a major driver <a href="https://www.demos.org/press-release/new-report-shows-student-debt-inescapable-regardless-size-loan" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">of social collapse</a>. It has made the racial wealth gap worse and weakened the entire economy, as debt holders are prevented from buying homes or consumer goods, starting families, or opening new businesses. It’s time to restore funds for higher education and cancel student debt for the victims of this failed experiment.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Learn more at <a href="https://www.freedomtoprosper.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Freedom to Prosper</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Mary Green Swig</b> is a senior fellow at the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University and co-founder of <a href="https://www.freedomtoprosper.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Freedom to Prosper</a>.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Steven L. Swig</b> is a senior fellow at the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University and co-founder of <a href="https://www.freedomtoprosper.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Freedom to Prosper</a>.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">David A. Bergeron</b> is a senior fellow for postsecondary education at the <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/person/bergeron-david/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Center for American Progress</a>. Bergeron previously served as the acting assistant secretary for postsecondary education at the U.S. Department of Education.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Richard “RJ” Eskow</b> is senior adviser for health and economic justice at <a href="https://socialsecurity.news/author/rjeskow/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Social Security Works</a>. He is also the host of <a href="https://tinyurl.com/m85qqbw" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The Zero Hour</a>, a syndicated progressive radio and television program.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">This article was produced by </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Economy for All</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</span></span></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/12/10/climate-global-finance-745-billion-coal-plant-development" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/12/10/climate-global-finance-745-billion-coal-plant-development</font></a></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">BlackRock</span>, Vanguard, Citigroup, and<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> <span class="caps">JPM</span>organ Chase</span> </b>are among the top global financers of new coal development, according to new research <a href="https://unfccc-cop25.streamworld.de/webcast/ngo-research-reveals-top-financiers-of-new-coal-po" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">presented during the United Nations climate summit</a> in Madrid.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That <a href="https://coalexit.org/sites/default/files/download_public/COP25_PR_Logos.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">research</a>, published by the German <span class="caps">NGO</span> <a href="https://urgewald.org/who-we-are-what-we-do" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Urgewald</a> along with BankTrack and 30 partner organizations, reveals and ranks the financial institutions sinking money into the dirtiest form of fossil fuels in the three years since the Paris Agreement was signed. The <a href="https://www.banktrack.org/article/banks_and_investors_against_the_future" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">research shows</a> hundreds of billions of dollars have flowed to 258 coal plant developers between January 2017 and September 2019 in the form of loans, investments, and underwriting. These groups clarify underwriting as the process of banks raising “investment capital for companies by issuing bonds or shares on their behalf and selling them to investors.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Over the past three years, financial institutions have channeled $745 billion to companies planning new coal power plants,” <a href="https://www.banktrack.org/article/banks_and_investors_against_the_future" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">said</a> Heffa Schuecking, director of Urgewald.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Financial institutions are bringing us on a road to runaway climate change,” Urgewald’s Katrin Ganswindt <a href="https://unfccc-cop25.streamworld.de/webcast/ngo-research-reveals-top-financiers-of-new-coal-po" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">added</a>. </font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Over 1,000 new coal plants totaling 570 gigawatts of capacity are currently planned or “in the pipeline,” according to the new research. These projects would expand the global coal plant fleet by 28 percent.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This comes at a time when the <span class="caps">UN</span> Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (<span class="caps">IPCC</span>) estimates that coal-powered generation must decrease by 78 percent by 2030 for the world to have any chance of limiting global temperature rise to 2.7°F (1.5°C). The <span class="caps">UN</span> Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for <a href="https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3075378/un-chief-calls-for-ban-on-new-coal-plants-after-2020" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">no new coal plant development after 2020</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>The <span class="caps">UN</span> Secretary General, the <span class="caps">IPCC</span>, and climate scientists worldwide have time and again called for a speedy phase-out of coal-based energy production, but most financial institutions are still turning a deaf ear,” <a href="https://www.banktrack.org/article/banks_and_investors_against_the_future" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">said</a> Schuecking.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While Japanese and Chinese institutions were identified as the top lenders and underwriters of coal development over the past three years, <span class="caps">U.S.</span> institutions led in terms of coal investments</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">. BlackRock,</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> the <a href="https://coalexit.org/sites/default/files/download_public/COP25_PR_Logos.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">research</a> found, was the<b> top institutional investor with $17.6 billion in holdings in 86 coal plant developers.</b> Vanguard ($12.4 billion) and Capital Group ($9 billion) ranked third and fourth.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Overall, 1,922 institutional investors held $276 billion in bonds and shares in coal developers. <span class="caps">U.S.</span> investors accounted for 29 percent of this investment. Other <span class="caps">U.S.</span> institutions ranked in the top 30 coal investors include <span class="caps">JPM</span>organ Chase, Fidelity Investments, and Dimensional Fund Advisors.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><span class="caps">JPM</span>organ Chase </span>also ranked in the top 30 in terms of underwriters and lenders in coal development, as did Citigroup. </b>For lending, Citigroup was ranked fourth with $5.7 billion. Chinese institutions accounted for 69 percent of underwriting in coal development, but Citigroup ($8.8 billion) and <span class="caps">JPM</span>organ Chase ($6.2 billion) were still significant underwriters. A report released <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/03/20/jpmorgan-chase-tops-banks-financing-fossil-fuels-climate-change" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">earlier this year</a> found <span class="caps">JPM</span>organ Chase to be the leading financer of fossil fuels overall, sinking $196 billion into coal, oil, and gas since 2016.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Financing for coal alone, as the new <span class="caps">NGO</span> research shows, is still huge and must be addressed under the guidance of the Paris Agreement. In November, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/27/coal-insurer-axa-to-divest-from-fossil-fuel-investments-underwriting" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">French insurer <span class="caps">AXA</span> announced</a> its intention to phase out investments and underwriting of the coal industry and its backers, which according to Urgewald’s Global Coal Exit Database, represents nearly $664 million in investments.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Financial institutions that continue channeling money to coal plant developers are actively working against the Paris Climate Goals and ruining our chances for a livable future,” <a href="https://www.banktrack.org/article/banks_and_investors_against_the_future" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">said</a> Schuecking.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/buried-fine-print-trump-rule-would-give-25-billion-tax-cut-big-bank-fat-cats">https://www.alternet.org/buried-fine-print-trump-rule-would-give-25-billion-tax-cut-big-bank-fat-cats</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wall Street banks <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/18/workers-see-crumbs-biggest-wall-street-banks-have-already-pocketed-25-billion-trump" style="text-decoration-line: none;">continue to enjoy record profits</a> thanks to President Donald Trump's $1.5 trillion tax scam, Trump's Treasury Department—headed by former Goldman Sachs executive Steve Mnuchin</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">—</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">quietly moved to hand big banks yet another major gift on Wednesday by hiding a <a href="https://capitalandmain.com/trumps-treasury-department-hands-banks-a-windfall-0808" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$2.5 billion tax cut</a> in the fine print of an "<a href="https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1027369635811745792" style="text-decoration-line: none;">esoteric</a>" new <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/reg-107892-18.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">rule proposal</a> (pdf).</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At first glance, the Trump administration's rule appeared to be little more than a mundane set of regulations aimed at providing owners of <b>so-called pass-through businesses</b> everything they "need to comply with the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act," as <em>Reuters</em> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-passthroughs/u-s-treasury-proposes-tax-rules-on-pass-through-businesses-idUSKBN1KT1RD?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5b6b2b044b738500013d3d56&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter" style="text-decoration-line: none;">put it</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But <em style="">Capital & Main</em> journalist David Sirota <a href="https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1027369635811745792" style="text-decoration-line: none;">decided to take the radical step of actually reading</a> the proposal in its entirety, and he found that the White House's rule also <b>seeks to exclude banking from the "financial services" category</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">—a move that would allow thousands of large banks to take advantage of the </span><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/12/18/sen-bob-corker-could-save-11-million-year-gop-tax-scam-kickback" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">controversial</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> tax cut for pass-through income included in Trump's tax bill.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> As they were hashing out the details of their tax bill behind closed doors, Sirota notes, Republican lawmakers included a provision that prohibited businesses in the "financial services" sector from qualifying for the tax cut in an effort to counter "assertions that the bill could enrich big banks."</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But, at the direction of bank lobbyists, the Trump administration's new rule asserts that "'financial services' don't include banking," thus allowing "hundreds of banks operating as S corporations—as well as their owners—[to] claim the tax cut," Sirota writes.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to taking the side of bank lobbyists with its new rule, the Trump administration also explicitly "echoed their views" in the fine print of its proposal, Sirota points out.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Banking industry lobbyists pushed for the interpretation—acknowledging that the bill generally blocked pass-through tax cuts for businesses in financial services, but arguing that 'financial services are, however, clearly something other than banking,'" Sirota writes. "The Trump Treasury Department not only sided with the lobbyists, but in the fine print of its new rule, which is now subject to a public comment period before it goes into force, echoed their views."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According Daniel Hemel, a tax law professor at the University of Chicago, the Trump administration's</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> rule change would reward "roughly 2,000 banks around the country that qualify as S corporations."</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"It's a safe bet that most of the S corporation shareholders benefited by today's decision will fall into the upper reaches of the top one percent—</b>not many middle-class folks own a bank," Hemel told <em>Capital & Main</em>. "If you assume a return on assets of around one percent and S corporation bank assets in the range of $400 billion, then the move reduces the total tax liability of S corporation bank shareholders by $300 million per year for 2018 through 2025. We're talking about something like $2.5 billion total."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In response to the Trump White House's latest attempt to reward the wealthy—which comes as wages for most workers are declining—S<b>en. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1027571918986194945" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wrote</a>, "It's never been more clear who the Trump administration is really working for."</b></font></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/ex-wall-street-banker-sounds-alarm-ten-years-after-financial-crisis-were-going-end-same-situation">https://www.alternet.org/ex-wall-street-banker-sounds-alarm-ten-years-after-financial-crisis-were-going-end-same-situation</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ex-Wall Street Banker Sounds the Alarm: Ten Years After the Financial Crisis, 'We're Going to End Up In the Same Situation'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">William Cohen warns next time, it might even be worse.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Elizabeth Preza / AlterNet August 5, 2018, 4:46 PM GMT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">William Cohen—a former senior-level mergers and acquisitions banker on Wall Street who is now a special correspondent for Vanity Fair—on Sunday spoke about the ten-year anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis, warning the practices that prompted the economic collapse have not substantially changed in the past decade.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an interview with CNN’s Ana Cabrera, Cohen warned the <b>United States has not made the necessary changes to prevent another devastating recession.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I wish I could say that we had, but we haven’t,” Cohen said.<b> “The main driver of bad behavior on Wall Street is the compensation system, what people get rewarded to do. People are pretty simple—they do what they are rewarded to do. Wall Street is still rewarded to take big risks with other people's money. They are not rewarded to take prudent risks.</b> We're going to end up in the same situation again. I'm afraid it's going to happen much sooner than anyone would like and it will be just as bad as the last one, if not worse.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We need to change what bankers are rewarded to do so they are not rewarded to to swing for the fences as if it were somebody else's money, because it is, as opposed to<b>their own money where they will be prudent about their risk taking,”</b> Cohen explained. “That's the single biggest thing we should change if we want to change this kind of an outcome from happening again.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cohen also described the “very short-term psychological damage” stemming from the 2008 financial crisis.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Institutions that we once had a lot of faith in the banks, Wall Street, were completely shattered,” Cohen explained. “A lot of faith was lost in Congress because they voted down the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) the first time and only passed it the second time. I mean, honestly, if you look at the economy now and the spirits that are raging now, I think it was sort of a short-term frightening and scary effect, but now ten years later, I bet most people don't even remember it. Most people who are young on Wall Street couldn't even tell you what had happened.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch below:</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/economy/why-public-must-understand-how-our-monetary-systems-work">https://www.alternet.org/economy/why-public-must-understand-how-our-monetary-systems-work</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">podcast</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pettifor</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Topics discussed:</font></p><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Money - what it is and how it is produced;</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How our banking and monetary systems work;</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why mainstream economists leave out the activity of Banks, Money, and Private Debt in their thinking and modeling; </font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Solutions for fixing and democratizing the global financial system;</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What the general public can do once they understand how our banking and monetary systems work;</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How people can effectively challenge and reverse the influence of extremely powerful financial interests;</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bitcoin; Job Guarantee vs. UBI; Brexit; Jeremy Corbyn and the state of the Labour Party; European politics and the rise of the Far Right</font></li></ul><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no link</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b> former CEO of Citigroup just admitted to a huge mistake.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In an op-ed published in the Financial Times, John Reed says large banks like the one he used to run are now "inherently unstable and unworkable."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The man who was one of the chief architects of the "Big Bank" model now says the United States never should have repealed the Glass-Steagall banking act in 1999.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That's exactly what Democratic presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley have been arguing on the campaign trail. They want the law reinstated. Hillary Clinton and the Republican candidates do not.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As CEO of Citi (C)from 1984 to 2000, Reed was one of the main lobbyists advocating Congress and President Bill Clinton to get rid of the Glass-Steagall Act. It had been in place since the Great Depression, and it prohibited banks from doing both investment banking (Wall Street activities like selling stocks and bonds) and retail banking (checking and savings accounts targeted at Main Street).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But Reed wanted Citi to merge with Travelers Group, an insurance company. For that, he needed the law repealed.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"We were wrong about some things, and others we failed to anticipate," Reed wrote Thursday, the 16th anniversary of the end of Glass-Steagall.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Related: What the heck is the controversial Glass-Steagall Act?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He spells out the two biggest flaws:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">1. Big banks aren't more efficient.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">His exact wording is: "One was the belief that combining all types of finance into one institution would drive costs down — and the larger the institution the more efficient it would be. We now know that there are very few cost efficiencies that come from the merger of functions — indeed, there may be none at all."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2. Big banks have bad cultures.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"The second thing we were wrong about has to do with culture — and this turns out to be very serious. Mixing incompatible cultures is a problem all by itself. It makes the entire finance industry more<b> fragile</b>," he wrote.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Related: The No. 1 'too big to fail' bank is...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dimon is not afraid of Bernie [vid]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reed's U-turn on Glass-Steagall comes after another <b>former Citigroup CEO and chairman Sandy Weill did the same in 2012.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Weill suggested that big banks be broken up "so that the taxpayer will never be at risk," in an interview with CNBC.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But many -- including Bill and Hillary Clinton -- are pushing back against the notion that the repeal of Glass-Steagall caused the crisis or made the financial system worse.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">JPMorgan Chase (JPM)is now America's largest bank. CEO Jamie Dimon points to all the services the bank provides to businesses and countries around the world.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"You need [big banks]," Dimon told CNNMoney's Cristina Alesci. "If you break them up, someone else is going to do it and they will be Chinese. If you think that's going to be good for the future of America, I beg to differ."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CNNMoney (New York)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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